Sight Unseen's 2025 American Design Hot List Includes Miles Gracey
Miles Lawton Gracey, Conch Couch, 2025. Courtesy of the artist.
Sight Unseen announced Miles Lawton Gracey (MFA 3D Design 2025) on their 2025 American Design Hot List, which showcases American designers with fresh perspectives. The list acts as a guide to influential and innovative designers on the rise. He was also featured in Sight Unseen’s 2024 Yearbook, a printed book including over 500 objects the publisher deemed most memorable.
Gracey is known for his hand-carved, shell- and snail-inspired furniture in a variety of forms, ranging from carved shelves to upholstered benches. His pieces are exceptionally crafted with a personal backstory, as the snails are an homage to his grandmother. His Conch Couch, created during his study at Cranbrook, was on view this past fall in an exhibition curated by Architectural Digest editor and author, Hannah Martin, for the 2025 Collectible Fair in New York, titled In Praise of Folly. In the summer of 2025, Seven Sisters gallery in Houston, TX, presented a solo exhibition of Gracey’s work, titled the living room.
Miles Lawton Gracey
Gracey joins nine Cranbrook Academy of Art alumni who have also been named to the American Design Hot List since its inception in 2013: Dee Clements (MFA 3D Design 2020) in 2022, Ara Thorose (MFA 3D Design 2015) in 2021, Ania Jaworska (MArch Architecture 2009) in 2017, Ross Hansen (MFA 3D Design 2011) in 2017, Nina Cho (MFA 3D Design 2015) in 2015, Aleksandra Pollner (MFA 3D Design 2016) in 2015, Jonathan Muecke (MFA 3D Design 2010) in 2014 and 2013, Chris Schanck (MFA 3D Design 2011) in 2013, Doug Johnston (MArch Architecture 2007) in 2013. Also previously named to the Hot List are the Academy’s current Head of Industrial Design, Leon Ransmeier, in 2014, and former Head of Ceramics, Anders Ruhwald, in 2022.
Gracey lives and works in Hudson Valley, NY, and is working on a new snail shelf and will be an Artist in Residence at Wendell Castle Workshop this spring. He will also teach a course at the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts this summer, “Form Follows Fiction: Expressive Furniture.”
Learn more:
Announcing the 2025 American Design Hot List – Sight Unseen
American Design Hot List – Sight Unseen
Collectible Returns to New York with a Visionary Take on Contemporary Design – Galerie Magazine
the living room – Seven Sisters
